Maths Problems & Investigations, Lower Secondary: Differentiated activities to build students' skills and strategies

Designed to support students who need practice to build their skills and strategies, Maths Problems and Investigations for lower secondary school, provides problems at a proficient level and an advanced level. It also includes investigations that draw students in to address real-life situations. To successfully solve the investigations, they must think and work mathematically, as well as use their knowledge of a range of mental and written strategies and demonstrate their overall competence in mathematics.

Greg Purcell began his teaching career in 1974 and is still actively involved as a tutor in primary education at The Australian Catholic University. He has always enjoyed teaching and is now pleased to be in a situation where he can assist aspiring teachers develop the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to become confident and competent primary school teachers.

Since 1993 he has been primarily a full-time author. As a teacher, he realised the need for student- and teacher-friendly resources that would provide course work that matched the curriculum. He took it upon himself to have a dabble in writing a series of problem-solving books which led to him, along with my teaching colleague Harry O'Brien, to create the immensely successful Maths Plus series - a teachers' favourite since first published in 1994.

That series has been a springboard for a number of other publishing projects that have sought to provide teachers and students with resources that enable achievement of all relevant outcomes in a meaningful and enjoyable context.

In order to keep his mind fresh and thoughts clear, Greg recommends staring every day with a swim or surf at Cronulla.